1. Coach Wade explains that having a clear vision makes a great volleyball season more likely, drawing on ideas like Stephen Covey’s “begin with the end in mind” and Tony Robbins’ focus on outcomes.

2. Aimed primarily at youth athletes (but applicable to others), he suggests using a composition notebook to write a future-looking reflection: imagining the season is over and asking what would need to have happened to feel happy with progress.

3. Coach Wade encourages setting ambitious, specific goals without becoming rigid if results differ, and expanding beliefs about what’s possible.

4. The vision should include three parts: how you want to feel and experience the sport, what it looks like to have fun and stay engaged in competition beyond just winning, and what work habits and research you will do that realistically lead to the desired outcomes.

5. Coach Wade previews later videos on supporter and relationship visions.

Hey, coach Wade here. Want to share with you something that will hopefully help you have the best, or if not one of the best volleyball seasons you've ever had. One of the things that many people who've been involved in either personal growth or business or psychology or coaching have learned over the years is... if you get clear about a vision, an idea of what you want things to work out like, it's much more likely for that to happen.

There are many authors that have written about this. Stephen Covey talks about beginning with the end in mind. Tony Robbins talks about knowing your outcome, and really the whole idea is just this concept that if you know what you're looking to create... It's much more likely for it to happen. And it does not mean you need to get very specific, that it has to be exactly a certain way.

And if it's not a certain way, you're just going to throw a tantrum and get upset and get mad at the universe or God or whatever you happen to believe, but that you are clear enough that you say, okay, this is where I'm looking to go. This is what I want to see happen. And one of the things I find if you're looking at the beginning, specifically of a volleyball season or a sport season, is I want to be able to think about a couple things, and specifically this is directed to youth athletes, but you can use this as other athletes.

I want to think about a few things. First, I want to think about... what do I want things to be like for me as the athlete? Secondly. Hopefully if my parent or guardian or those who are supporting me are involved in my vision and my work, then I would want to know... what do they want to see happen in my journey?

How do they want to support me? And who are they hoping to be in relationship to my journey? And then if the two of us can talk together, the three of us, or how many there are, the athlete and the supporters, the parents, the guardians, whomever that is. What does that vision look like for our relationship?

And so I'm going to cover three things here. They're very simple exercises, and I'm a big fan of using composition notebooks. So those simple black and white composition notebooks, they might be college ruled or wide ruled. Whatever you happen to like... mainly because you can write down a couple things, and then you can write and journal in there or do what you like with it.

So it's kind of a blank slate that you can work with, but again, allows you to be clear about what you're looking to create. So the first thing I want to suggest to you, and this part is first for the athlete. What I want you to think about is if we're talking in a few months from now, it's three months from now when your season's over, or it's a year from now, whatever the length of your season is.

What would need to happen over that period of time for you to feel happy with your progress? Now, this is a question. It's not just a random question I made up. There's a gentleman by the name of Dan Sullivan. He has a company called the Strategic Coach, and in the Strategic Coach, they coach entrepreneurs.

He's done this for decades. He's a phenomenal coach, and this is one of those things I studied in psychology... thinking about your outcome. And he has a specific way of wording it. So again, I want you to think about this. Imagine you and I are talking three months from now or 12 months from now, whenever your season's done, or imagine you and your coach are talking, or you and your parent or guardian... what needs to have happened

in that period of time of your season for you to feel happy with your progress? And so what that's assuming is that in 3 months, 12 months, whatever it might be, that you've had a great season and that you're now looking back and so you're saying, I'm looking back now, so we're going to this future version of you and saying what happened?

What was it that made this a better season? And so I'm going to specifically ask you to consider three parts of this. So first of all, just what would need to have happened? And at this point you can always pause this and take out a piece of paper and write this down, or a composition notebook. So again, three months from now, 12 months from now, whenever your season is done, what would need to have happened for you to feel happy with your progress?

So you write down those ideas, and you can have specifics to this. So right now we're just making a wishlist, a hope list, a vision list, what we want to have happen. You can be as specific as you want. You can be almost demanding. And it's not demanding because again, we're not going to throw a tantrum if it doesn't happen.

But we're going to be specific about, here's what I want. So if you really want to play at a certain level if you want to be a D1 college player, and that's not the only goal in the world, by the way, but if that's what you want, we don't want to be saying, well, I want to maybe play in college. That's selling yourself short.

Let's be clear about the goal. Let's be clear about how it looks. If things work out the way you most want. It might not work out that way. There's going to be work that needs to be done. But the last thing we want to do is have you aim for a lower goal and hit it. Realizing that, oh my gosh, if I had reached for a higher goal, maybe I would've hit that too.

Or even in a similar way, what if I aimed for that super high goal? But I reached just short of it, but way above what I thought was possible. So again, I really encourage you in this. This is so much about expanding your mind, your heart, your beliefs, your thinking to what is possible. And I'll simply lead with a simple concept... if another human being is doing it,

it's usually possible. Now, that doesn't mean you want to walk the journey. It doesn't mean you want to do the work that's required. But if you take a sport as in this case, volleyball, there are athletes that are tall and there are athletes that are short, that are playing at world class levels. So it's not this thing of, well, I'm short, so I can't this, or I'm slow twitch, so I can't do this.

That's my camp... or whatever it is. And notice I still carry that baggage with me. I'm in my fifties and I still refer to myself that way, and it's probably still not the best reaffirming thought. So I'm going to change that. I'm fast twitch, or at least faster twitch than I was yesterday. But anyway. So think about what would it look like for you to have a great season? And then specifically think about different parts of it.

So what would it look like from a standpoint of how would you feel? What would it be like to play? And I always talk to people about the difference between playing a sport and working at a sport, and both are a relevant part of the journey. But for most of us, we first started with, I want to play this sport.

I want to learn this sport. I want to get to know the sport. What if I hit the ball this way? What if I experiment with this? What if I study this video? This sense of awe and fascination that is usually that inspiration, that fuel that drives us to positively move forward with the sport. So again, what would it look like?

How would it feel? I'm enjoying myself. I'm excited to go to practice. I'm looking forward to it. I'm watching videos. I'm studying the best athletes in the world. I'm watching videos of myself. I'm seeing how I'm improving. That's what I mean as far as getting specific and writing specific statements of what that can look like.

The second part of that vision is. What does it look like while you're playing? That you're having fun. That you're enjoying it. It's not just playing and you're going and you're showing up, but you're really just fully enthused and excited. And for me, there's a balance between competition and play. And a lot of people get stuck in a place of, well, if I don't win, it wasn't fun.

And there's that saying, you might've heard that comparison is the thief of joy. Well, if I just played an awesome match, played awesome volleyball and lost by two points, would I rather have that or would I rather win by 20 against a team that's horrible and the game wasn't even exciting? So there's that balance.

Obviously we all want to win. Everybody wants to win. But what does it look like for you to be having fun? I'm fully engaged. Maybe I'm playfully talking smack to the other team if they're friends of mine. If they don't know me, maybe that's not a good idea. Maybe I'm just light and I'm enjoying it, and I'm enjoying the pressure.

And rather than feeling fearful about, oh my gosh, what if I lose? I'm all engaged. Like, yes, this is, oh, we're going to three sets. Awesome, let's go! And I have that sort of sense of excitement about it.
And then the third part of the vision is the part that I believe is necessary if you want to still be grounded in reality.

So if all we do is talk about the outcomes, I'm going to be the greatest volleyball player in the world. I'm going to be making a bazillion dollars a year... and we never talk about the work, then now we're just more having a wish. We're not having a realistic vision. So I want you to think about in the vision, what is the work that you're seeing yourself doing

that naturally leads yourself to the outcome of having the results of your vision? So if you're saying, yes, I want to be a D1 player, and part of your vision might be, yes, I'm going to research what that looks like. What are the activities? What are the exercises? What's the diet like? How are they people getting their sleep and their nutrition?

Are they wearing an Oura ring or a whoop, or whatever it's that they're doing? What does that look like? And what do the hours look like? So if I do some research, whether it's on ChatGPT or the internet, or I talk to top coaches and find out, okay, this is what the best players do... that part of my vision is not just having the successes, but also having, what does it look like for me to do the work?

Because if I can get excited about the goal... and if I'm excited about the work... I'm going to be likely to do the work and much more likely to hit the goal. So that's our first vision. And I'm going to break this into smaller videos so it doesn't get to be too long. This first one's a little bit longer. So in this first vision, you as the athlete, again, if everything turns out the way you'd like and we're talking 3 months, 12 months from now, what would it look like for you to be happy with your progress and feel like...

This journey has been worth it? And specifically in our case that you've been able to play, you've been able to have fun and you've done the work necessary. So go ahead and do that work. If you want to leave comments or share feedback on that, that's great. Otherwise, at the very least, do that work in a piece of paper or in a

composition notebook. And at this moment I'm not going to create forms for you because again, I find that almost restricts things. Just make your list, write it out, and have that be something you're looking at on a regular basis. And in the follow up to this video, we're going to talk about what that vision looks like for your parent, your guardian, or whoever it is that's supporting you.

And then finally, a similar vision as far as what it looks like for you all's relationship of how the two of you all work together so that your vision is supported and they also are feeling appreciated. If you have any questions in this, as always, please let me know. Looking forward to helping you enjoy your journey, enjoy your wins, and enjoy the entire process along the way.